Arguably one of the best events of this year’s Corsham Festival, the Mary Hampton Cotillion brought back to life traditional English folk with the eccentric twist that Hampton embodies.

The clue is in the title as to what really made this an extra special evening. Ethelred House enjoys the stunning backdrop of a folly and Hampton herself admitted that it was one of her preferred venues on the six-stop tour of enchanting locations.

The music was framed by the garden walls, a flock of swifts swooping and swirling above and the sound of nearby Corsham Court peacocks squawking. The group’s new CD, Folly, is going to be a winner but it is hard to encapsulate that atmosphere in any other format than actually being there to soak it up.

Reviews of debut album My Mother’s Children

“Terrifying and gorgeous….unusual and strong…..epic and tiny… ‘My Mother’s Children’ is an album I know I am going to love for life.”Eliza Carthy, fRoots April 08

“songs, which recline with shimmering sensuality in various shady cloaks of weirdness…fragility, desolation and humour…scurrying around Dartmoor under cover of darkness.”Colin Irwin, Telegraph, April 08

“her bizarre flights of fancy are the dreams of children, far more unsettling for an adult…..evoking Eliot’s Wasteland in it’s beautiful bleakness”.Wyl Menmuir, Fly, June 08

“coffee-table-shattering purity…these are songs of unnerving delicacy, elemental and acoustic simplicity…potent and enchanting” David Stubbs, Uncut, August 08

“brilliant..peculiar…how great the unexpected on this album makes me feel”Kate Lewis, Acoustic Magazine, August 08

“…a true original…..Hampton’s vocal lines are not so much melodies as weather systems” Clare O’Brien, Subba-Culture, May 08